Blogs and Commentary

Dispatches from Denver: Weather-Delay Reporting

COMMERCE CITY, Colo. – As I begin to
write this, we are an hour in to an weather delay on account of a
steady stream of thunderstorms, and hopefully nothing more, passing
over Dick's Sporting Goods Park. The main stadium field is flooded
pretty good, the result of rain and hail, although the draining
system is keeping up strong.

Australia is scheduled to play Japan and England to face the
Iroquois Nationals in the two highlighted Blue Division Games of
the evening, to cap off what's already been a full day with 36
nations playing; all of the other nations besides Canada and the
U.S., who opened the tournament on Thursday and had the day
off.

Team USA hit the homemade ice
baths after a light practice Friday afternoon.

I headed about 25 minutes south to Denver University this
morning with Lacrosse Magazine editor-in-chief Matt
DaSilva to meet the Uganda lacrosse team and take in some of the
dorm life the teams are living during the tournament. To meet the
Uganda players was a real treat, and hearing Fields of Growth
director Kevin Dugan tell them all how important it was that they
made it to this point after a pre-game lunch was special.

Ohio Machine midfielder Tom Schreiber, an assistant coach with
the team, said that the group is probably a lot better than people
think. They were excited having just received their jerseys a
couple hours before their first game against Ireland, as the first
African team to play in the FIL World Championship.

Matt jumped on the shuttle bus with the team as they headed back
to Dick's, and I made my way over to Team USA's off-day practice,
if you could call it that. It was a light mood on a turf practice
at DU, as you would expect after a big win over your biggest rival
the night before, with stretching the main order of business for
roughly 30 minutes followed by some team bonding time in ice baths,
crafted by the Team USA support staff. It didn't take long for
hijinks to ensue, with the group in one of the inflatable tubs
throwing ice and eventually using water guns to fight the group of
players in the other a few feet away.

There were some other topics of discussion, too, like the
breaking news that the NLL's Philadelphia Wings would re-locate to
a to be determined location for 2015. One of the players yelled
"Cleveland," reacting to the news that LeBron James was returning
to Cavaliers' NBA franchise.

From there, it was back to Dick's to take in Uganda's debut. A
sizeable crowd was on hand at one of the outside turf fields when I
arrived about eight minutes in to find Ireland leading 1-0.
Eventually, the Irish pulled away leading by more than 10 goals
before Castro Onen leapt near the crease and fire in Uganda's
first-ever international goal to make it 17-1 late in the third
quarter. Onen raised his arms in the air and ran over to the
bleachers to celebrate with teammates, as the crowd roared. Matt is
working on a story on Uganda's whole experience, so look for more
on that soon.

Fields of Growth director Kevin
Dugan addressed the Uganda lacrosse team before its
debut.

Around the same time on an adjacent field, Germany put the
finishing touches on a 12-4 win over Belgium in the Red Division.
The victory started a new chapter for the program, which found out
late last year that the FIL membership had opted to reinstate the
Iroquois Nationals to the Blue Division despite its forfeiting of
all games due to passport issues four years ago in England.

"It's very good [to get going]," Germany head coach Jack Kaley
told LM's Sean Burns. "It gets the past behind us and lets us look
to the future. Basically, we've got a new team [since 2010], and a
lot of these kids weren't involved four years ago."

The biggest impact on Germany was fundraising, as sponsors were
less enthusiastic once the team would not have guaranteed games
against powers like the U.S. and Canada like it did four years ago,
when it stepped up to fill the void left by the Iroquois absence.
But with a game under its belt, Germany and Kaley can look at the
task at hand rather than dwell on the fact that they weren't
playing Friday night against England in Blue Division play.

Soon after the Germans wrapped up their win, the rain started,
then the hail and wind followed. I was really hoping a tornado
wasn't happening, although I guess we all would have known if that
was the case. And here we are now. Australia and Japan are set to
start in about a half hour, followed by the Iroquois and
England.